Taking Stock
by jill112
Summary: Ruth/Malcolm telephone conversation. The real reason Ruth has not returned yet.


Auth. Note: As this is a phone conversation I've done this purely as dialogue, but will leave you to imagine a split screen with the the fab Nicola Walker and Hugh Simon pulling the appropriate faces!

Disclaimer: I don't own Spooks, Kudos does. Come on guys, although I've given you an excuse for Ruth's continued absence up till now, please don't let me down in Series 8.

**Taking Stock**

"Good afternoon madam, this is the Sofa Company, calling about your delivery. The green sofa is ready for you."

"Thank you for ringing, can you arrange for it to come between 12 and 5 tomorrow?"

"No problem, I will ask the driver to call ahead when he is about half an hour away."

"Hi Malcolm."

"Hello Ruth, you got the SIM card then."

"Yes, thanks, the drop was fine. It's good to hear from you, it has been a while."

"Well, we did agree that until we got a few things sorted out, it wasn't really a good idea to have too much contact."

"I know. Have you told Harry that we set this up?"

"Not bloody likely, he would have had your whereabouts out of me before you could even allude to the knife with which he would have amputated my testicles."

"How is he Malcolm?"

"Valiantly fighting the good fight, Ruth."

"Generally, or specifically?"

"Oh, both I would say. Look, I can't talk about what Harry or the rest of the team are doing, you know that, I shouldn't even be speaking to you now, except that you need to know where you stand and how far your safety is compromised."

"I understand. Thank you Malcolm. So how is it going then?"

"We have a problem."

"Ah. Anything I should know about?"

"Well, the Oliver Mace thing – as you know, he was forced to resign. Although he was on remand for a couple of months, he called in a few favours to escape a prison term, but he is really 'persona non grata' where it counts. Harry has tabs on his Caymans bank account, so we think we can keep him on a fairly short leash. His power over the others in the plot was only ever due to their perceived notion of his ability to keep everything under wraps and they feel they have been treated very harshly in comparison to him, so even the ones who have only lost their influence are in no mood to do him any favours or listen to his vitriolic ramblings."

"That sounds promising."

"Oh it is! There is some fairly substantial progress on the big stuff really, Harry has been to see the DG about the conspiracy and the Fox involvement which he accepts was obviously a set up. The other thing was around Mik Maudsley's death. We have managed to cast enough doubt on that dodgy CCTV footage to get it reviewed. There shouldn't be too much trouble around that – it _was _suicide after all. The problem is the auditors."

"The _auditors_?"

"Do you remember, after Tom shot Harry, and Mace tried to take over the Security Services?"

"Oh God! That was awful."

"Yes, well, Mace told everyone that Thames House was rotten to the core and he was going to 'clean the Augean Stables'."

"And?"

"Well you know what that means Ruth."

"I know I am a classicist Malcolm, but you are being a bit …obscure here."

"OK, the stables of Augeus the Argonaut had never been cleaned and they housed cattle that were the gift of the gods so could not be touched…"

"I know the story! I also know that it was supposed to have been a humiliation for Hercules, as all his other labours had cast him in an heroic light, and this was supposed to get his hands dirty, but instead, he diverted two rivers through the building and washed it clean. There was more to it, but where are you going with this?"

"The metaphorical rivers that did the business – the unstoppable force, Ruth. He has had it in for us for years, and he has been winding up the finance people, very subtly. You know the sort of thing, hints at sloppy paperwork, woolly budgeting, systematic failure to control expenditure and equipment. Of course, we had no idea, no warning…"

"Malcolm, you are rambling, get to the point!"

"Sorry. After you 'went', the auditors came sweeping through our affairs like the Severn Bore."

"So, what's the problem?"

"There's no easy way to say this. There was quite a lot of…stuff… unaccounted for."

"Oh Lord! The microdot reader! It was still at my house!"

"Quite! But that wasn't everything, was it Ruth?"

"Well, there were the 2 cameras and the 5 mobiles in case any got compromised or we had to call a Doghouse but surely that is just chicken feed in the Departmental budget."

"You know accountants, Ruth, if it costs, they count it. Apparently we have to record all assets with a de minimus value of £50 now, and all operational equipment regardless of its cost. Anyway, the rest?

"OK, the 12 cans of anti-personnel spray."

"As you well know, the anti-personnel spray is classified as a bloody firearm for the purposes of keeping it and disposing of it! Locked steel cabinets etc etc! What were you thinking of?"

"Emergencies Malcolm, and anyway, if anyone broke in, a locked steel cabinet would be the first place they would look to see if there was anything worth taking. Also, I stashed it in various places where I could get hold of it surreptitiously, it would have been useless if I had to go round unlocking multiple locks in one cabinet with a bunch of jangly keys."

"Yes well, we did find it in some odd places"

"Even the one in the toilet cistern?"

"Yes, that was the first one we found actually. And the ones in the kitchen. The clue to the one inside the instant coffee jar was, of course, that you don't drink instant. You obviously don't eat cornflakes either. By the way, your freezer was iced up, so the one in there was pretty useless, as you wouldn't have been able to get it out. The one we thought was the most inspired was the one in the pedestal of the birdbath in the garden."

"How did you know…?"

"Fidget and Rascal. We didn't think you attracted birds to your garden to watch the cats get them, ergo you didn't use the birdbath as a birdbath."

"Goodness, Malcolm! Your people were thorough!"

"Sadly, not all mine Ruth, or we might have been able to… Explaining this is difficult – they came in so fast! They were just waiting for the merest hint of an excuse. We didn't have a chance to retrieve your items… or anything else."

"What do you mean 'anything else'?"

"The thing is, you weren't the only one to have …erm… 'borrowed' things."

"What else was missing Malcolm?

Malcolm?"

"It's bad Ruth."

"How bad? For heavens sake man!"

"Well first there were the laptops."

"Yes, we all had laptops, for ops and for working away from the office, so?."

"Do you remember the Cabinet Office directive? The one that got issued just after Six was horribly embarrassed by the spate of laptops that kept being left in taxis and on trains?"

"Something about not taking information away without authority?"

"That's the one. Everyone, including you, assumed there was authority for everything, being part of their jobs and so on, but actually, it was that there should be no removal of _any_ information from the office environment without written authority by a Section Head, and nothing above the 'Restricted' protective marking in any circumstances."

"But that's more or less everything Section D does!"

"Exactly! It was so ludicrous, Harry just ignored it. He's been decidedly tetchy and combative more or less since the Meyers/Collingwood coup attempt. He decided that it was aimed at the plods and Whitehall wallahs and designed to give Six a metaphorical bloody nose. Only it wasn't, so we had a few unaccounted for. Along with that, we had numerous comms devices, bugs, and some of the stuff from R&D all scattered amongst people, safe houses, secret stashes."

"Understood, but that doesn't sound too bad. Operational imperatives should be able to explain any delayed paperwork on those."

"That's true, but you see, things were beginning to mount up, to be indicative of a certain laxity. These were, of course, only the sins of omission."

"And the sins of commission?"

"Do you remember the EERIE exercise a few years ago when Colin and I came up with that robot?"

"The one cannibalized from all sorts of comms equipment?"

"That's the one. Colin was really proud of it. He was irked by the fact that we hadn't been able to get it outside, and was intrigued by the possibilities. Long story short, he took it home and spent hours of his time off working on it, and gradually added to it, with an idea of armouring it and entering it into Robot Wars. He appropriated things he thought were of little use, like broken equipment. The last thing he added was the guillotine blade he had used to hack through the wall when we were the 'guests' of Angela Wells. We should have produced the write-off files for all the stuff he took, but somehow never got around to it. I forgot about it after the team went in and cleared his house when he died."

"Surely that would all appear in the inventory?"

"Yes, but it went unnoticed until we were under direct scrutiny. It seems hard that he would be branded a thief for taking things that were of little use and I need to manufacture something that proves he was working on an authorised special project, but these things take time Ruth."

"I'm getting an uncomfortable feeling you are not telling me everything Malcolm. All this seems a little petty in comparison with me being in exile."

"This is where it starts to get a bit tricky. We aren't just talking about the reputation of a dead man, there is also the questionable judgement of a Section Head who has a number of irrational actions to justify, from ignoring Cabinet directives, allowing Collingwood to commit suicide instead of facing justice and causing Mace actual bodily harm , no matter the provocation. Please don't get defensive Ruth, I'monly saying what this looks like_._ Anyway, here we are with further questions about his section's accountability too."

"Was there anything else Malcolm?"

"Umm, there were some purchases that had been made for legends, such as Armani suits, and expensive jewellery, not to mention the Aston Martin DB9 coupe in tungsten silver with phantom grey leather, none of which could be immediately found."

"Where are they Malcolm? Who has them?"

"Mike from Section G has the suits for an op he is running in the City, but as you know, there is a bit of a feud with Alistair, their Section Head ever since we accidentally caught him with the Foreign Secretary's aide at the last G8 summit, so he's happy to cause trouble and deny everything. Harry has enough on his plate at the moment without us involving him, so I will try and cover that as soon as I can get round to it. Juliet has the jewellery; she borrowed it for some swish do. We didn't know at the time, but she realised when the report was submitted. There is no way they will censure a cripple, but it would be better if we can arrange an anonymous return. The car was 'borrowed' by Zaf to impress a girlfriend and he pranged it. It was in the garage for some bodywork, which is why we couldn't find it. He was all for owning up, but it was just another thing in a long list."

"Anything else?"

"Only one thing. Sorry Ruth, but there is the small matter of … the helicopter"

"The helicopter."

"Yes. Harry's helicopter. He has stashed it for some black op that even I know nothing about yet. You know Harry, Ruth; his motto is 'admit nothing'.It has to remain deniable, that is the point, and he certainly wasn't going to tell Millicent Maynard about it."

"Just who is Millicent Maynard?"

"Millicent Maynard, Head of Forensic Audit. Bony woman, mid 50's, all angles and planes. Could disembowel you if you brushed past her in the lift without you even noticing straight away. Clinical, believes that any deviation from having triplicate accounts reconciled against tax returns, receipt book flimsies and a countersignature from the Chief Clerk of HM Treasury is indicative of woolly thinking and practice, and whoever is responsible should be surgically excised."

"Malcolm you are sounding scared. You are losing the ability to string together coherent sentences. What on earth is the matter?"

"She is truly terrifying Ruth!. Her clearance is so high they have to wear oxygen masks when reading her file. She is completely beyond reproach and even we cannot find or manufacture anything believable against her. Squeaky clean, never even smoked behind the bike sheds when she was a teenager."

"I can't believe she is that bad Malcolm, everyone has something, even just dubious taste in music."

"Not this one Ruth, they say she hangs upside down by her toes in a cupboard during the hours of daylight. She texts people on Sundays to ask where the purchase orders are for invoices they have signed off!"

"Oh come on!"

"No, really! Section F ignored a directive from her and suddenly found they could not requisition anything for a week and had to re-register their corporate credit cards, because she removed their delegated financial authorities. Their Section Head had to get the bus to work for God's sake! Juliet and Ros are fluffy bunnies by comparison."

"Malcolm. Stop babbling! What am I supposed to have done with all this stuff anyway?. I assume it has _all_ been laid at my door?"

" We had no choice Ruth. The initial assessment was that you had not only conspired with the Cotterdam people, but you had been responsible for resourcing and financing them, even down to the Aston and the helicopter for the first leg of the transfers of the terrorists to Egypt. They've even searched E-Bay to see if the suits and jewellery have turned up. Now that we are working to distance you from official involvement, we need convincing alternative explanations."

"So, to summarise, my personal safety is much more assured and there won't be hit men looking to take me out if I am spotted, but I can't come back – my life cannot be my own - because of some bloody bean counters and the fact that our own record keeping was a bit dodgy?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Well that makes me feel a whole lot better. Thank you Malcolm."

"Ruth, shouting really isn't going to help."

"I am not shouting."

"In that case, could you not shout more quietly please? I really need to tell you what we are trying to do to sort this out, but this conversation is giving me a headache."

"Not nearly as bad as the headache you are giving me."

"Thing is, we _were_ guilty of exactly the things that we got caught on. Our paperwork was sloppy, we did have woolly budgeting and failed to control the expenditure and equipment. We were arrogant enough to think that because we were defending the realm, we were above the finance regulations and that operational imperatives overrode our public accountability. Of _course_ we had been under pressure, of _course_ action took precedence over paperwork, but we have procedure for a reason. The field officers stick religiously to the stuff which protects them, we all know why it is there, but we are all too intolerant of what we think is bureaucracy, and in the end, it has come back on you, put you in danger. Had we all followed it, you would have been safe."

"Hmm. Thing is Malcolm, I feel betrayed. When I left, it was my choice, and frankly now I am feeling quite used and dirty"

"Sorry Ruth, if it could have been done any other way we would have, but this has the potential to destroy Harry and the Section if we are not careful. I know you don't want that, so we are going to have to think of a plan to find, restore or account for all the missing things and in ways that cannot be connected. Trouble is, we cannot just go 'oh look we found our missing helicopter in a shed at the bottom of the garden', because that would expose us all. We will do it Ruth, but it will need to be done by stealth and over a period of time. Please be patient."

"So what is the next move then?"

"There is a young lady who was part of the audit team. She has an eye for detail and seems to know many of the potential loopholes that admit fraudulent practice. Harry has given me the task of obtaining information from her on the many ways that she has caught people out and the ingenious ways of covering up."

"It amazes me Malcolm, how some of these people sleep at nights."

"Alys is fascinating, Ruth. In her own way, she as staunch a defender of the realm as Harry is. She has a point, as it's public money we use, and we need to be transparent, at least internally, as to where it goes. Anyway, we have spent quite a lot of time together, and have attended some concerts, including another scratch Mozart. I am taking her out for dinner tomorrow"

"She sounds as though she has her claws into you."

"She does not have claws, in fact she has a fine mind, and particularly elegant thumbs, but it troubles me that I have to use her for information I may need to subvert her Department."

"Do you really like her Malcolm?"

"She is interesting and interested. That is something that has not happened for a while, also she doesn't scare me like so many of the field officers do. She says that maths and music are natural partners, with both exhibiting patterns, precision and harmony, and that she admires my mind and clarity of thought. She bought me a splendid green silk tie – the colour of money she says, but it doesn't really go with my blue shirts."

"I bet you wear it every day don't you?"

"Of course."

"Seriously, once or twice a week is quite enough. It shows you appreciate it, but you aren't obsessive and you maintain your own style – after all, she liked you without it first… What am I saying? Malcolm! Look, if it can work out, then I wish you all the best, but you have been given a role to play so this whole sorry mess can be resolved and I can come home. Please don't go all noble and concience-stricken and feel the need to 'fess up to Alys."

" I may have principles Ruth, but I am very aware that you, Harry and all of us are at risk here, me included, and I would be in just as much danger of losing her if I ' fessed up' as if she 'sussed' me, to say nothing of Ms Maynard taking all our heads to decorate her cupboard! I will find ways to salve my concience, although it may prove expensive… If nothing else, it will be the lesser of the two evils compared with Harry's wrath. The brakes have come off with him since you have been gone Ruth, he is much less tolerant, and definitely more vulnerable and ruthless. Yes. Ruth – less. Maybe that's it."

"Malcolm!"

"Sorry, sorry, did I say that out loud? None of my business. In fact, I shouldn't have said anything at all."

"It's OK Malcolm, i. was just a bit of a surprise, that's all. I will regard it as something never said so long as you promise me that it won't be said again. Ever. To anyone."

"Thanks."

"Oh Malcolm, it's so hard to keep waiting, but I do understand you are trying, and I know some of it is my fault."

"We all miss you Ruth, don't worry, really. We _will_ get this sorted out. Keep checking the drop on the first of each month. I will send you another SIM when I have more to report. The next sofa will be orange."

"Righty ho I…I guess I had better… never mind. Until next time then. Look after him, please Malcolm."

"I will Ruth, goodbye."


End file.
